Such A Swamp
by HelenVanPattersonPatton
Summary: Mindy and Danny have been here before. What makes this time different? - Standalone companion piece to The Last Time. It is not necessary to have read that first, though. Submission to The M Project on AO3


A/N: I accidentally spilled schmoopy-angst all over this. Every time I tried wiping it up it just made it worse so. . . sorry about the mess. I should probably have this dry-cleaned. . .

* * *

The kitchen knife clutched in her right hand - gripped appropriately for stabbing - and the skillet in her left do nothing to ease the way Mindy's heart is racing as she moves silently through her dark apartment. She'd call the cops, but when the most recent time she called them thinking there was an intruder turned out to be the hum of her return air vent filter needing changed they had politely asked her not to call them again.

It's probably nothing; she hasn't heard it the last few minutes. Maybe it was just one of her neighbors coming in late. She lowers her weapons.

There it is again - a heavy thud against her front door. Mindy's stomach drops out and she pictures her obituary so clearly that it's almost distracting her from the moment: this is how she's going to die.

Except it seems like a weird thing for a sex-crazed murderer to do, right? Breaking into a door-manned building then spending twenty minutes just bugging the piss out of the intended target? This never happens on SVU. Mindy creeps to the door and looks out the peephole, the ever-present fear that when she does she'll be met with someone looking her dead in the eye. But there's nothing. And not nothing like an empty, dimly lit hallway, but nothing-nothing. There's a wavy black shadow covering the lens that looks like - Oh.

Mindy chucks the kitchenware on the table by the door and flicks open the lock. Danny staggers forward a little, his hands planted on either side of the door-frame the only thing keeping him from falling into her apartment headfirst.

He looks up, startled and frowning like she's the one inconveniencing him. "Why won't you leave me alone?"

"_Excuse me_? Which one of us showed up at the others apartment at three in the morning?" He takes two shuffling steps inside, far enough to close the door behind him and invade her personal space at the same time. He reeks of tequila and that's bad, purposeful. If he was drunk on bourbon she'd think it happened by accident.

He's shaking his head where it hangs, the weight of it looking like it may be too much for him, whatever words he's looking for eluding him. Damn it. She does not want him here, but it looks like there's no way even with her help he could make it home in this condition.

"Come on." She reaches for him, tugging on his elbow to guide him into the living room. He follows only until the edge of the couch then stops, pulling her in front of him.

"Why won't you leave me alone? I can't stop thinking about you." Danny's rubbing a hand awkwardly against the thin T-shirt material at her waist, and he cannot be doing this. Not _now_. When it's been months since the last time at the Christmas party and they have been nothing to each other since then besides civil co-workers. And especially not now when he comes to her morose and amorous and too drunk to do anything about it.

"Danny, you don't want to say all this, and I don't know if I want to hear it. Nothing's changed. Just sleep it off and go home and I promise I won't mention it again, okay?"

"I love you."

"Damn it, Danny!" Mindy pushes away from him, the resolution she had built up that she was immune to this - to him - dissolving with as little as three slurred words. He doesn't let her go far, fingers curling in her shirt. "You can't do shit like this.

"No, I know. Mindy, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Come back, please." He's stretching her shirt out and she goes, too tired to fight.

"What?"

"Come back."

"I'm here. Say whatever it is and then let me go."

"Come back _to me_." He's leaning down, this time intentionally, trying to meet her line of sight. "I mean it, Mindy, I love you. I'm sorry I'm drunk. I - I tried three different times the last two weeks to do this sober and I couldn't. Because I know what you're going to say, but. I want you back. It's killing me seeing you every day, having to act like I'm not miserable."

"You think it isn't killing me too?" Her voice breaks and, damn it, there is a tear sliding down her cheek and she had sworn she would never let him see her cry again.

"I don't know! Is it? You're polite and distant and all I ever overhear you talking about are all these different guys you've been on dates with."

"Yeah, all these _different_ guys I go on dates with. The ones that never make it past date number three because all I can think about is how -" she's shouting and - no; she's not doing this. He may be full of liquid courage but she isn't, and she is not laying all of this out there, not after she'd been doing so well getting over him. Trying to do well, anyway.

This time when she tries to walk away he grabs her by both arms. "_All you can think about is how_ - What?"

"How they're not _you_! How I'm so afraid that I'll never find anyone again that makes me feel the way you do. And then I remind myself that's a good thing. Because at least being with some rando I don't even like means I can't get my heart broken again."

"I broke your heart?"

"Yes, Danny. God, how clueless are you?" Tears are falling steadily down her face now, and she would care but she thinks maybe she just admitted she loves him, so who the fuck cares about a few tears.

Danny runs his hands up, cupping her face where he can swipe his thumbs under her eyes, and when he kisses her she can't tell if the salt she's tasting is from the shots he did or from her tears. His lips move surprisingly deft over hers, nothing messy at all about the way he sucks her bottom lip into his mouth. Maybe he isn't as drunk as she assumed.

"Danny," she mumbles into his mouth, pushing him away. He stares back at her with those stupid sorrowful eyes. "What makes you think it will be different this time?"

"Because it has to be. Because I understand now that you're it. All the things I messed up or didn't take seriously because I was too scared won't happen again. Because I'm not going to be a dickhead and I'm going to trust you with my heart." His fingers are curled around her ears, barely brushing her skin. He's holding her close enough his breath is warmly washing over her lips when he speaks, making her shiver. "It will be different this time because I know what it's like trying to live my life without you, Mindy, and I can't do it anymore."

"Okay." She's nodding her head, wanting to say the same things back to him, because she's been more miserable than she knew was possible and even if they crash and burn again she has to at least try.

"Okay?"

"Yes. And I don't care if it's going to be hard. It can't be harder than these last six months have been." Then he's crushing his mouth to hers and that's it; they're doing this.

It is always so quick with him, her control nonexistent. The tug of his lips and teasing hint of tongue tasting like lime coupled with his hand spanning high on her ribcage, thumb urgently swiping the peak of her breast through fabric, and she's gone, already too needy to think about anything else. She runs her fingers through his hair with both hands, letting him pull her body flush with his, and the way he's pressing against her, already hard, means she was very wrong about how drunk he is.

Mindy jerks him around the sofa and pushes him down, rethinking for a moment the logistics. Danny's gawking up at her as she slips off her pajamas and he needs to stop staring and hurry up. "Take off your pants."

His fingers fumble, trying too hard, and the wait is excruciating. As soon as he has the buckle undone, button-popped, and fly down on his jeans, she tugs on them, fingers catching his boxer-briefs too, and with minimal shifting on his part everything is pooled in a heap by his ankles in no time.

She straddles his lap and, with her hand guiding, sinks onto him. Danny groans when she does, guttural and involuntary, and it makes her move, circling hard where they're seated before lifting and sinking again. Mindy falls into a rhythm, Danny being encouraging with his mouth on her neck and one hand on her ass, the other pinching her nipple.

Quickly the only motion she can focus on is grinding down hard, the friction of where his pelvic bone is hitting her more than she can take. Mindy falls apart with a keening gasp, the surprise of her orgasm hitting with unexpected force.

She shaking, her heart beating arhythmically as she comes down. Danny's peppering kisses on her neck and chest, murmuring words she can't understand into her skin. And she can't hear what he's saying but the tender attention of his mouth is so worshipful it makes Mindy's stomach flutter with understanding. Silently, over and over, he's speaking adoration into her being.

"I never said it," she realizes aloud. He doesn't have to ask her what, the glint in his eyes as he pulls back to look at her face full of anticipation.

"Then say it."

It shouldn't feel official. She thinks he has to of known, even before she basically said as much earlier. Though maybe he _doesn't_. Maybe he never knew how committed she was to this, how there was never a doubt for her that he is the one. It makes her heart ache to think if maybe she'd admitted it sooner - No. Mindy is not going to let _what ifs_ sully this. She eases back on him, watching the way his features change as she shifts, his eyelids fluttering, before lacing her fingers around his neck.

"I love you, Danny."

He pours enough heartbreak for the two of them out in his kiss. It's cloying and desperate like he's afraid if he stops she'll take it back. Mindy pushes on his shoulders and looking him in the eye says it again. "I love you."

With a quick, strong shift she finds herself laid back on the sofa, Danny looming darkly over her. He kisses her neck and bears down harder, pressing her legs wide. "Say it again."

Her nerve endings are humming again already, her breath erratic. "I lo-" OH. He stretches her left leg up and over his shoulder, calf at his neck, her other leg easing down and body turning into the sofa slightly and - _fuck, he feels amazing._ It's a good thing she's been doing all that yoga as part of her 'Don't Think About Danny' routine.

He's relentless, hitting hard and deep, at just the right angle that every time he thrusts coronas are bursting around stars into front of her open eyes. "Oh shit," she gasps, "_Danny_."

"Say it," he grunts.

"I -" Her orgasm is starting again, this time lapping at her toes, dragging her in its undertow. His hand is lightly grasping her neck, thumb at her trachea stroking, as if he can coax the words out of her.

"I lo - love you -" she finally grits out. He's groaning, head dropping and knee digging into the sofa cushion under her, legs still bound at the ankle by his pants.

The hair on Mindy's head is standing on end like she's being touched with live electricity and she needs him to come already. Because her second orgasm is turning into a third and she can't breathe, the edges of her vision getting dark, and if he keeps hitting that same spot in her like his life depends on it then she's going to black out.

So she does what she knows will make it happen and digs her nails into his backside and scrapes her teeth down his earlobe, biting.

And there he is, panting her name and muscles quaking, and she can feel him inside, twitching and hot in a way that doesn't seem possible. Danny slumps over her, her leg falling down gracelessly. His face is coated in sweat, and for that matter hers probably is too, his hair damp when she runs her fingers through it.

He's resting his weight on her, pressing her evenly into the cushions in a way that is oddly comforting and she kisses everywhere she can reach. Mindy mimics him and presses everything wordlessly into his skin. She hopes maybe it will be enough to seep in deep, through all of their fractures, and mend what's been broken.


End file.
